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Posted by Alex Harper on 12:07:00 07/04/06
In Reply to: Tropicbird ID (lengthy) posted by Rock Jetty
Based on how much black I saw on the wingtips, and the black we can see on the sides of the bird in Trey's photos, I am confident on White-tailed.
Also, a White-tailed Tropicbird is a good five inches smaller than a Royal Tern, while a Red-billed is fairly close in size to the tern. While we watched it, we could see just how small it was.
Even though we could not compare it to anything on the open ocean, it was still noticeably smaller than a Royal Tern. My vote: White-tailed, subadult
I agree with Robin that it wouldn't hurt to send the pictures into an expert.
Alex
Alex
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